I thought I would keep my notes on my PI configurations, in case it helps anyone else.

Using the PI without a monitor
You can plug your Pi into the Network and your laptop USB for low power usage and use VNC and SSH, also this method frees up the USB ports from mouse and keyboard.

I am assuming you have already used the boot.rc file to enable SSH and managed to login to the PI over SSH, or are using the HDMI for initial interfacing with the PI.

Static IP Address
If your running your PI on the local LAN. Chances are the PI will be getting the same IP Address everytime you boot. However if you want to be sure that this is the case you can edit the following config file /etc/network/interfaces. You can use whatever text editor you wish to do this, but you must run it as sudo. Once you have opened the file complete the network information that relates to your network. Use the sample below for reference, but use your IP range, gateway etc. This will give your PI the same IP each time it boots. Note: make sure nothing else on the network has the same IP.

pi@raspberrypi:~$ vncserver
You will require a password to access your desktops.
Password:
Warning: password truncated to the length of 8.
Verify:
Would you like to enter a view-only password (y/n)? n
New 'X' desktop is raspberrypi:1
Creating default startup script /home/pi/.vnc/xstartup
Starting applications specified in /home/pi/.vnc/xstartup
Log file is /home/pi/.vnc/raspberrypi:1.log

Now we want vncserver desktop to run at boot time. This is done by putting a startup script in /etc/init.d. Create the file tightvncserver in here. This must be done as superuser.

I think I managed all the steps but I'm not sure if its all done correctly i was completly guessing it when it came to creating script with vi.
I tried connecting from my windows pc with tight vnc but it just said it was refused.

ps - command lists running processes,
ps aux - lists ALL active processes
| is pipe to combine it with another command
grep is that another command used to filter output of ps and only show lines containing "vnc"

Hi,
Thanks for this. I couldn't get init.d/vncserver to keep running on reboot. I had to run this:
sudo update-rc.d vncserver defaults 99
That sets it to run on reboot, but at a low boot order, per these threads:http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/28http://www.abdevelopment.ca/blog/start- ... omment-355
I found that your init.d script works better than the one I found in the other forum though.
Also, I have two tricks for connecting to the raspberry pi headless. The first is to run arp -a on your desktop and look for raspberrypi. You should see something like:
raspberrypi.yourISP.com (192.168.1.109)
You can connect either via the IP or the DNS name, raspberrypi.yourISP.com.
Also, I installed Avahi, which is the same as apple's bonjour, and now I can also access the pi with the domain raspberrypi.local. So I can use http://raspberrypi.local for HTTP, ssh:pi@raspberrypi.local for SSH, etc.
Thanks--

After following all of the instructions and other users posts, I got the script working so that the VNC server starts on boot.
Unfortunately, it seems to be in some sort of restricted mode. I get some misc errors when running my python scripts like it doesn't have access to specific files.
I also noticed that if I go to reboot I only have a logout option. If I start the VNC server when directly connected to the pi, I get all of the regular options from reboot to shutdown etc.

Anyone have any ideas why this would be and how I can go about fixing it?